US lawmaker Rashida Tlaib compares ‘racist’ Israel’s anti-Palestinian policies to Jim Crow laws

Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) has denounced Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, describing that country’s policies as an affront to human rights and comparable to racial segregation in the American South.

Tlaib, the first Palestinian-American to serve in Congress, told Jacobin magazine that she’d witnessed Israel’s “racism” first-hand, while visiting Palestine.

I can tell you when I was in Palestine with my mother and she had to get in a separate line. There are different-colored license plates if you are Palestinian or Israeli.

She denounced these policies as “racist” and argued that Israel’s “continued dehumanization” of the Palestinian people “violate[s] international human rights,” as well as her values as an American.

The freshman lawmaker went on to compare the situation in Israel to segregation in the United States, which was enforced by the infamous Jim Crow laws, and the concept of “separate but equal."

While insisting that she wanted a peaceful resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, Tlaib stated that her ancestors were “killed” and “uprooted from their land” during the creation of the state of Israel – something “no one even wants to acknowledge.”

The congresswoman has come under fire for her support for the Boycott Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) movement. Last week she tweeted about anti-BDS legislation currently being considered by the House, arguing that the bill was unconstitutional because “our First Amendment right to free speech allows [the] boycott of inhumane policies.”

Her colleage, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota), caused an uproar in February after suggesting that the anti-BDS movement in Congress was being funded by AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel lobby. She stated that lawmakers oppose BDS because “it’s all about the Benjamins” – a tweet that sparked accusations of anti-Semitism.

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